League of Legends to get $5 million second season, joins the MLG

Riot games have announced that League of Legends Season Two will have a prize pool of $5 million, spread over different competitions in different regions. It's a fitting number given the staggering stats Riot put out recently revealing that 1.4 million people play it every day.

Here's another huge number: 1.7 million. That's the number of people who watched the first season. The enormous prize pool looks set to draw in even more, and LoL's expansion doesn't stop there. It's also become a fixture of the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit as well.

In just its second year since release, the League of Legends competitive scene has become so prolific that the MLG are kicking off a new tournament halfway through their current season. MLG Raleigh will host the first League of Legends event, which will feature four of the best US LoL teams: Epik Gaming, Curse Gaming, Team Solo Mid and Counter Logic Gaming. They'll be competing for a slice of a $20,000 prize pool. The competition kicks off next Saturday and you'll be able to watch the matches live on MLG TV from 10AM ET / 3PM BST.

League of Legends joins the MLG's three main featured games, StarCraft 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Halo: Reach, and looks set to become a regular fixture in the MLG's tournament weekends. League of Legends is also part of the Electronic Sports League one of the titles that make up the Intel Extreme Masters Series.

It's not without competition, however. Valve are revealing Dota 2 to the world with a $1 million tournament taking place this week at Gamescom. That kicks off tomorrow, with matches streamed live from Dota2.com. Blizzard's own version of Dota is also hovering on the horizon. War's a-coming.